1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for producing a regenerated elastic roller used in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In electrophotographic image forming apparatuses, elastic rollers in which an elastic layer including rubber and the like is formed on the periphery of a conductive core metal are used as developing rollers and charging rollers. Such elastic rollers are often placed in a state of abutting other members in electrophotographic image forming apparatuses. Therefore, due to long-term usage thereof, a considerably unrecoverable deformation, a so-called compression set is sometimes caused in elastic layers of elastic rollers. The deformed portions of such elastic rollers sometimes exert an influence on development and charging, and in its turn an influence even on the quality of electrophotographic images.
In recent years, from the viewpoint of reducing the environmental load, for reutilizing elastic rollers having such compression set caused, the development of a technology has been demanded which recycles the elastic rollers so as to allow the elastic rollers to be used for formation of high-quality electrophotographic images by relaxing the compression set of elastic layers. Then, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-197641 discloses a process for producing a regenerated elastic roller, which includes a step of relaxing the compression set of an elastic roller by heating the roller surface.